scholarly journals Lichens and allied fungi of Sandbar Lake Provincial Park, Ontario

2020 ◽  
Vol 133 (3) ◽  
pp. 206-215
Author(s):  
Hanna R. Dorval ◽  
Richard Troy McMullin

Sandbar Lake Provincial Park (Sandbar Lake) covers 8053 ha in the boreal forest in northwestern Ontario. Within the park boundary are natural forests representative of those in the region, as well as forests that are heavily disturbed from resource extraction activities, which are prevalent in northwestern Ontario. The lichen biota in this part of the boreal forest is known to be rich and abundant, but lichen diversity is also known to be negatively impacted by disturbances (e.g., timber harvesting, mining, and climate change). Therefore, lichens can be used to monitor the effects of these disturbances, but baseline data are required. Here, we present the results of the first detailed inventory of the lichens and allied fungi of Sandbar Lake. We report 139 species in 69 genera from 16 sites that represent all macrohabitats present in the park. Seven species have a provincial conservation status rank from S1 to S3 (critically imperilled to vulnerable), and one species, Arthrosporum populorum, has previously been collected only once in northwestern Ontario. Our results fill biogeographic gaps for many species and allow lichens to be used as biomonitors during further study at Sandbar Lake. We show that Sandbar Lake has important conservation value, and our data provide an opportunity for further study in an area with no previous research on lichens.

2021 ◽  
Vol 58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irina S Stepanchikova ◽  
Dmitry E. Himelbrant ◽  
Ekaterina S. Kuznetsova ◽  
Sergey V. Chesnokov ◽  
Liudmila A. Konoreva ◽  
...  

The lichen diversity of the proposed protected area Pukhtolova Gora counts 252 species, including 232 lichenized, 12 lichenicolous, and 8 non-lichenized saprobic fungi. Micarea laeta, M. pusilla, and Pyrenidium actinellum s. lat. are new to North-Western European Russia; Parmelia serrana, Rhizocarpon cinereovirens, and Stereocaulon taeniarum are new to St. Petersburg. Altogether 13 species recorded in the study area are red-listed in St. Petersburg, with two of them known only from historical collections. Pukhtolova Gora is an area with a high conservation value; the lichen biota of this area is one of the richest within the city limits due to the well-preserved forest habitats.


2011 ◽  
Vol 366 (1582) ◽  
pp. 3256-3264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Woodcock ◽  
David P. Edwards ◽  
Tom M. Fayle ◽  
Rob J. Newton ◽  
Chey Vun Khen ◽  
...  

South East Asia is widely regarded as a centre of threatened biodiversity owing to extensive logging and forest conversion to agriculture. In particular, forests degraded by repeated rounds of intensive logging are viewed as having little conservation value and are afforded meagre protection from conversion to oil palm. Here, we determine the biological value of such heavily degraded forests by comparing leaf-litter ant communities in unlogged (natural) and twice-logged forests in Sabah, Borneo. We accounted for impacts of logging on habitat heterogeneity by comparing species richness and composition at four nested spatial scales, and examining how species richness was partitioned across the landscape in each habitat. We found that twice-logged forest had fewer species occurrences, lower species richness at small spatial scales and altered species composition compared with natural forests. However, over 80 per cent of species found in unlogged forest were detected within twice-logged forest. Moreover, greater species turnover among sites in twice-logged forest resulted in identical species richness between habitats at the largest spatial scale. While two intensive logging cycles have negative impacts on ant communities, these degraded forests clearly provide important habitat for numerous species and preventing their conversion to oil palm and other crops should be a conservation priority.


2008 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 711-720 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne-Hélène Mathey ◽  
Emina Krcmar ◽  
John Innes ◽  
Ilan Vertinsky

The intensification of forest management in Canada has been advocated as a possible solution to the conundrum that increasing demand for conservation areas and increasing pressure for timber production have created. The benefits and disadvantages of intensive forest management in the context of the Canadian boreal forest are unclear and reaching conclusions about its general value from stand analyses may be difficult. In this study, a boreal forest in Ontario has been used to investigate the potential of intensive management to generate financial revenues and meet management constraints on volume flow and old-growth retention. Two aspects of intensive forest management are considered: intensive silviculture and concentrated harvest activities. The plans are generated with a decentralized planning approach based on cellular automata. The results for the case study show that increasing silviculture intensity can help fulfill high timber flow requirements under strict conservation requirements. This comes at the cost of reduced net revenues but from a smaller timber harvesting landbase. The main trade-offs found were those between harvest flow and financial benefits. Clustering both protected areas and harvest operations could help achieve the conservation and timber-related objectives simultaneously by improving the habitat value of conserved areas and decreasing the operational costs in harvested areas.


2019 ◽  
Vol 132 (4) ◽  
pp. 394-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Troy McMullin ◽  
Katherine Drotos ◽  
David Ireland ◽  
Hanna Dorval

Bioblitzes are typically 24-hour biological surveys of a defined region carried out by taxonomic specialists, citizen scientists, and the general public. The largest in Canada is the Ontario BioBlitz, an annual event held in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Between 2013 and 2016, we examined the feasibility of including lichens and allied fungi in the Ontario BioBlitz. These taxa are often overlooked, understudied, and taxonomically difficult. We completed a bioblitz in each of the four major watersheds in the GTA and recorded 138 species in 72 genera which, combined with all previous collections, totals 180 species in 88 genera in the area. Thirteen of the species we collected are provincially ranked as S1 (critically imperilled), S2 (imperilled), or S3 (vulnerable). We collected Lecanora carpinea for the first time in Ontario. Our results provide a baseline list of GTA lichens that can be used for monitoring. This is one of the first detailed lichen surveys of a major North American urban area and it demonstrates that rapid bioblitz surveys are proficient in capturing lichen diversity despite their inconspicuous nature and the advanced microscopy and chemical analyses required for their identification. 


2013 ◽  
Vol 127 (3) ◽  
pp. 240 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Troy McMullin ◽  
James C. Lendemer

Southern Ontario is the most densely populated region in Canada. As a result, ubanization, industrialization, and agriculture are extensive. Few ecosystems in the region have been unaltered, and second-growth forests now dominate the remaining natural landscape. To better understand the lichen diversity in these second-growth forests, we inventoried 24 distinct vegetation communites in the Copeland Forest Resources Management Area (1780 ha) located between Barrie and Orillia in September and October 2011, recording 154 species in 79 genera. One species, Lecidea sarcogynoides, was collected for the first time in Canada and is reported for the first time in North America; one additional species, Micarea micrococca, was collected for the first time in Ontario and is reported for the first time in Canada; three species that have previously been collected in Ontario — Bellemerea cinereorufescens, Phlyctis speirea, and Xanthoparmelia angustiphylla — are reported for the first time in the province; and Candelariella lutella was collected and is reported for the second time in Ontario and the third time in Canada. In addition, six species with a provincial status rank of S1 (critically imperilled) or S2 (imperilled) were located: Arthonia byssacea, Arthonia ruana, Chaenothecopsis pusiola, Cresponea chloroconia, Pachyphiale fagicola, and Placynthiella uliginosa. Our results show that second-growth forests can be important refugia for lichen diversity. The majority of the lichen diversity within the Copeland Forest was contained in a small number of sites (6 of 24). This suggests that management strategies should integrate lichen diversity by targeting species-rich areas. We found that sites with a high variation in: canopy closure, tree species, tree age, moisture, and the presence of snags had the highest lichen diversity. Forest managers in southern Ontario can use our results to identify species-rich areas on their properties.


2008 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juri NASCIMBENE ◽  
Lorenzo MARINI ◽  
Renzo MOTTA ◽  
Pier Luigi NIMIS

Abstract:In the European Alps, subalpine forests are important for lichen diversity conservation at multiple levels. However, the potential role of coarse woody debris (CWD) has been only marginally considered in the previous literature. The aims of this case study are (i) to provide a first evaluation of the effects of different types of CWD (stumps, logs, and snags) and wood decay on lichen diversity in Pinus-Larix forests in the Italian Alps, and (ii) to increase the knowledge of the lichen biota on CWD in Italy. Seventy-eight species were found, including 12 nationally rare and 10 calicioid species; Placynthiella hyporhoda is new to Italy. Different types of CWD in different decay stages had significantly different lichen communities. Snags seem to be particularly effective for conservation, since they host the highest number of nationally rare species. Our survey suggests that CWD could be an important substratum for several nationally rare species, indicating that further surveys at a regional scale are urgently required in order to evaluate the role of CWD for lichen diversity conservation in the Alps.


2003 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
K H Nicholls ◽  
R J Steedman ◽  
E C Carney

The phytoplankton communities of three small boreal forest lakes (L26, L39, and L42) on Ontario's Precambrian Shield (Canada) were investigated over 10 years for possible effects of forest harvesting (logging) within their drainage basins (5 years before logging vs. 5 years after logging). During the postlogging period, higher biovolumes of several taxa were recorded, consistent with previously reported changes in nutrients, chlorophyll, light penetration, and mixing depth. Among the most dramatic changes were increases of 100 and 266% in Cyanophyceae in L39 and L42, respectively, 167% in Dinophyceae in L26, 51 and 130% in Chlorophyceae in L26 and L42, respectively, 182% in Bacillariophyceae in L26, and 53 and 73% in total phytoplankton in L26 and L42, respectively. Other effects associated with logging in the watersheds of these lakes included an increase in the numbers of taxa (in accordance with the intermediate disturbance hypothesis) and a decrease in interannual variability in phytoplankton community structure (in accordance with the ecosystem diversity–stability hypothesis). The less extensive logging of the L26 drainage basin and the maintenance of an unlogged shoreline buffer strip did not preclude apparent effects on phytoplankton comparable with some of those found in the other two lakes, where drainage basin logging was more extensive.


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